Michael McGlade

One of Mid Ulster’s and indeed Northern Ireland’s most famous nightclubs - Clubland in Cookstown - is peparing for its final blast off.

The Molesworth Street venue has been a rite of passage for young people from across the country for 40 memorable years.

Down the years, The Pink Pussycat, as it was also known, was always the hip place to be - whether it was during the punk scene of the Seventies, the Mod period and the new romantics era of the Eighties, or the indie, grunge, Britpop and rave scenes during the Nineties.

Friday night’s final Clubland will also raise funds for the Southern Area Hospice.

Pomeroy woman, Elaine Simpson a former bar tender at the venue lost her uncle to cancer 10 years ago and has decided to give something back to the hospice that cared for him in his dying days.

As well as caring for those with cancer, the charity offers palliative care to those suffering from a range of other illnesses such as Multiple Sclerosis, Motor Neurone Disease, HIV and Aids.

Clubland to close its doors

But, just to maintain the level of care they now provide, the hospice - which relies heavily on charitable donations - must raise an astonishing £6,301 a day [£2.3m per year].

To help them reach that target Elaine has decided to put her own fears aside to take on the biggest challenge of her life - trekking across an active volcano and mountains in Iceland.